By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
No fewer than 15 people were beaten and arrested by the Nigerian Police at the Lekki Tollgate area of Lagos on Saturday, February 13, 2021.
They were allegedly protesting the reopening of the site [Lekki Tollgate] where activists, who were denouncing police brutality, were shot last year in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.
The 15 protesters had gathered at the gate early in the morning despite calls by the government this week to stop the demonstration.
At least six of the protesters were beaten with truncheons and arrested before being driven away in police vans, according to Reuters.
“They are already manhandling us, but we’re not going to be deterred. We’re not going to step down,” said one man, who did not provide his name and spoke to Reuters as he was being arrested.
But the office of the Lagos State police spokesman had stated that it was unaware of the arrests but would look into accusations that activists had been manhandled.
Nigeria’s Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, warned activists earlier this week to drop plans for the protest, saying it risked being “hijacked by hoodlums”.
On Friday, one of the two youth members of a Lagos State panel investigating the October shootings resigned, citing “undue intimidation of peaceful protesters” and the panel’s vote to reopen the toll gate – a source of revenue for the state government – before the probe had been finished.
Thousands of Nigerians, who were calling for police reforms staged largely peaceful protests nationwide for about two weeks in October, but the Lekki shootings sparked street violence and looting across the country.
The wave of civil unrest was one of the worst since the end of military rule in 1999.